The nominees in criticism are "Gritos" by Dagoberto Gilb (Grove), "Songbook" by Nick Hornby (McSweeney's), "Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling" by Ross King (Walker), "River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West" by Rebecca Solnit of San Francisco (Viking) and "Regarding the Pain of Others" by Susan Sontag (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).